How To Avoid Backorders in a Drop Ship Business

A drop ship business offers an advantage in terms of stocking goods - you don't have to bother about it at all. But this advantage has a downside: since you are not stocking goods yourself, you may be unaware of some changes in the inventory made by the wholesaler.

Say, you place an order for a certain product, and it appears that it is currently unavailable at the store of your wholesaler. Then, you may have two options - either wait until the product gets available or cancel the order. In both cases, you'll have your buyer unsatisfied and can be sure they won't come back to your site.

The problem is that you never know for sure that a particular product will be available at the moment you place your order. Some dropshipping sites do not actually list the total amount of inventory. Thus, drop ship business involves certain risk of backorders. Here are some tips to overcome that.

Keeping An Eye On Quantities

Keeping pace with changes in the wholesaler's inventory is an essential task for anyone running a drop ship business. To be more exact, the best idea is to follow quantity trends beforehand. Of course it is usually safer to list only those products that are plentiful in stock.

Try Setting Shorter Auctions

If you notice that a product is stocked in a small quantity, you can try offering it for a shorter period of time. For instance, start a 2-day auction rather than a 5-day one. As a result, you may be able to get a pretty nice deal, and will have less time for getting worried as well.

Canceling An Auction If Needed

Apart from checking the inventory before listing a product in an auction, be sure to check its quantity during the auction as well. If you see that the quantity of the product is reducing and gets close to zero, you can consider canceling the auction.

Stock Up with a Few Products

Just to be on the safe side. It is one of the most effective ways of avoiding backorders. The best idea would be to stock up a bit with the best-selling products, and a few items should be enough. By getting several products in store you'll make sure that you have the products that are likely to be ordered by your customers.

Try to follow these tips to minimize the likelihood of backorders and enjoy your drop ship business with satisfied clients that will be coming back to your website!

About the Author

Do you want to Make Money on eBay?. Thomas Griffin is the founder of Urbanload - The #1 eBay Dropshipper. Over 2000 resellers can't be wrong. Visit UrbanLoad to join our free reseller program. Choose from a wide range of over 1000 products to dropship.